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May 13, 2010

I used a combination of this tutorial and this idea to create my own cute stuffed owl. I used the pattern from the first, but printed it on 8.5 x 11 paper - because I wanted my owls smaller.

For the one on the left, I made little taggies with scraps of fabric. (Squares, sewn right sides together on 3 sides and turned right side out)

For the one on the right, I used ribbon, folded over.

Lay the taggies along the strip of fabric, just as you want them to look. Place another piece of fabric on top of it, right sides together, and sew along the top. Then, when you flip it open, it will look like the pictures below:

Then, I sewed the eyes and the beak. I chose not to use buttons for they eyes, so that there would be no choking hazards for little kids.

My top piece looked like this when I was done:

I followed the rest of the tutorial to finish - it explains it very well.

May 8, 2010

This blog post goes out to my mom, who made these amazingly cute, fun and functional metal magnetic hanging boards.
I sold them at a craft fair and they were a huge hit!

Originally, she made these for a stake girls camp gift, and needed quite a few. So, her source for the metal was a place to buy them in bulk. Ultimately, she had a few extras to give away and sell as gifts.

Falcoln Sheet Metal in Bountiful, UT (801-298-5064) will cut the metal for you, with nice rounded edges and holes for stringing your ribbon. The catch is that you have to buy a large metal sheet, which they cut down. It is large enough to make about 200 of these 8"x6" sized ones. They come out to a very economical $2 each square of metal, but you have a lot of them.

She used the 12" square pieces of scrapbook paper, and could cover 2 pieces of metal with one sheet of paper. Using spray adhesive she attached the paper, covering the entire board, and trimmed the edges. She then put a smaller strip of complementing paper across the top-middle.

With a permanent ink pad, she ran it along the edges to add depth.

Finally, she strung a pretty piece of ribbon through the holes for hanging.

I hung mine in my bedroom with pictures of my kids on it, and later moved it to my kitchen. I love to make magnets too, so it is a fun place to use them, other than the refrigerator.
Plus, if you made these as gifts, it would be nice to pair it with some fun home-made magnets!

May 6, 2010

Pick a couple of fun fabrics in coordinating colors - you need the length to be about 1 yard for adult headbands.

Make a snip about 1 - 2 inches wide, and TEAR your fabric. It is amazing how cool this ends up looking, and how it comes out in a straight line! If your first tear is not straight compared to your edge, make another snip and tear again. The grain will stay the same, but may not be in line with the manufactured/cut original edge.

Tear two pieces, different complementing colors, with one piece slightly wider than the other.
Lay them on top of eachother, so the wider one is on bottom. If you want to taper your ends slightly, do that now with scissors.

Sew along the edge of the skinnier/top piece of fabric, leaving about 1/8" seam allowance. Sew two or three times up each side, letting your line wave and cross to accentuate the shabby look. I used a dark, contrasting color, because this not only keeps the pieces together, but adds a decorative element.

Now to add flowers. There are about a million and one tutorials for fabric flowers out there, and any number of them would look good on these headbands.
I will show you how I made the ones in the pictures here.
Tear a piece of fabric about 1" wide and 1 foot long.
Tuck the end under and start to twirl the fabric in a circle.

You can twist the strip as you go if you want, but just make a tight little pinwheel.

Then, tuck the end under, and place it on your headband. I dont usually put it in the middle, because I like my flowers off to the side of my head. So maybe 1/3 of the way along your headband, place the flowers.

I dont pin them down, I just smoosh them with the presser foot of my sewing machine. Then, again with a dark, complementing color, I sew in a spiraling circle all along the flower.

I twist and twist my headband, sewing the circle tighter and tighter, catching the layers of the twirly flower as I go. Do this with 3 or 4 flowers, overlapping each flower a bit if you want, sewing each individually. It ends up looking like this:

That is it! So simple. Tie it in a knot behind your head, and it looks so cute!! Keep in mind, this is just a basic headband. You can do 1, 2, 3 or more layers in your long strip... you can do giant flowers if you want, or any number of things! Make them in every color for every outfit. They work for the young and the old, and you always look hip!